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Show u PERSECUTION GOES ON AGAINST FRENCH RELIGIOUS. The persecution of the religious orders or-ders and, indeed, of the Church In a ranee goes on witnout an interval ot one day. Seals are being placed upon the doors of convents by the agents of the government, and within a few hours they are broken either by the people or by the owners of the establishments. estab-lishments. Then comes the citation of the so-called law breakers before the civil tribunals. The priests, or brothers, broth-ers, or nuns, as the case may be, walk from their convent to the court surrounded sur-rounded by a body guard of thousands crying out, "Long live the priests," "long live the brothers," "Long live the nuns," "Down with Combes," while counter crowds cry out: "Down with the pri' '.hood." The sentence is passed an . -lother outburst takes place, and thus lawyers, magistrates, judges, policemen, and soldiers are all employed, and the citizens of hamlets, villages and towns are kept in a whirling whirl-ing uproar and confusion. And while this , goes on without the deputies in Parliampnt nn hnth cirloo nro in flomoo of passion. All this mockery of right and justice is carried out by a government govern-ment that seeks to drive out. of France its best and noblest citizens. How it will end no one can determine. Meanwhile it is encouraging to note that not all the French officials are enemies en-emies of Catholicity. The Paris cor-1 respondent of a London paper says that a number of French judicial officers of-ficers have sent in their resignations rather than have a hand in the application appli-cation of the law against religious orders. or-ders. One of the most remarkable of these resignations is that of the justice jus-tice of the peace for Sevres, near Paris, Par-is, M. Frederick Clement, who is a Protestant. In transmitting his resignation, resig-nation, he writes: "My resignation is due to purely political po-litical reasons. I do not want to have a hand in the application of the Associations As-sociations Laws of 1901. I do not think I need assure you that I am not actuated act-uated by religious motives, as you are aware that I am a Protestant, and a Republican firmly convinced of the necessity of the supremacy of the civil power in the state. But I refuse to recognize in the present policy of the government the respect for the tradition tradi-tion of liberalism in which I have been brought up. I have done nothing so long as it was possible to believe that the law of Associations was merely a precautionary law intended to facilitate facili-tate supervision. But now that it is obvious that it strikes at the roots of the liberty of education, even of the liberty of belief, I consider it a duty to advise you that you must not rely upon me to enforce its provisions." |